Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter marry in Washington D.C. to circumvent Virginia's Racial Integrity Act banning interracial marriage

Richard Loving, a white bricklayer, and Mildred Jeter, who was Black and Native American, traveled from their home in Caroline County, Virginia to Washington D.C. to marry on June 2, 1958, because Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act criminalized interracial marriage between white and non-white persons. They returned to their home in Central Point, Virginia, unaware that Virginia prosecutors intended to enforce the ban retroactively against marriages performed in other states. At the time, 16 states had anti-miscegenation statutes on the books; Virginia's Racial Integrity Act carried a mandatory sentence of one to five years in prison.